


But We Can't Hide

by Genuinelies



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Emotions without Plot (EWP), Fairshaw, M/M, accidental angst, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-16 22:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genuinelies/pseuds/Genuinelies
Summary: When Mathias gets lost on purpose, Flynn finds him.A confrontation in Stormwind leads to outing some truths. PWP / EWP (emotions without plot)





	But We Can't Hide

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write some Fairshaw but my mind feels like it's been zapped, so this weird little story is what it came up with.

“Fancy seeing you here!”

Mathias Shaw wasn’t often surprised in his life, but the familiarity of the voice had him choking – subtly of course – on his drink. He set down his mug with delicacy and wiped the beer foam from his upper lip before casually looking up.

“Aren’t you a little far from home, Fairwind?”

“You might be a little rusty on my profession, Matty-boy.”

Mathias glanced around them dourly; Fairwind was, unbelievably, keeping his voice pitched tolerably low, however, and no one was paying them mind. He’d chosen the pub specifically because it was out of the way, tucked into the Dwarven district of Stormwind. It was ridiculous that Flynn Fairwind, of all people, was somehow in the same tavern at the same time he was.

“You don’t have business in Stormwind,” Mathias pointed out.

“As it happens, I did,” Fairwind said, with a touch of amusement in his voice. “Anyway, can’t a man explore? Take in the sights? Stretch his sea-legs? It’s been azerite run after azerite run, mate, I think I deserve a little vacation.”

“And you chose Stormwind,” Mathias said, flatly.

Fairwind was smirking at him, damn the man.

“What’s your business here?” Mathias asked, taking another casual swig of beer.

“Oh, don’t you know? This is good. The great spymaster of the Alliance has no idea what a man like Flynn Fairwind might be doing at any given time?” Though Fairwind’s tone was light, there was a brief and unmistakable flash of a darker emotion on his features. “Not important enough to get on your radar, I gather.”

Ah. There it was.

“I do have one rather significant friend here, you realize,” Fairwind added with a frown that drew down his whiskers and deepened the lines on his good-natured face.

Mathias suppressed his irritation with another gulp of beer. “Taelia has more important things to do these days than play tourguide, Fairwind.”

“She wanted the moral support.”

Mathias snorted. “As if you have a moral bone in your body.”

“Ouch, mate. I thought we were on the same side.” Fairwind looked decently hurt, so Mathias relented.

“Have a seat, Fairwind. It was a joke in poor taste.” With resignation, Mathias waved over a server. Fairwind looked intolerably delighted as he turned a chair around and, frustratingly, sat in it backward at the small table, his legs splayed wide.

“You’re not asking me why I’m here,” Fairwind pointed out with a raised eyebrow and disconcertingly knowing eyes.

Mathias held up a hand and ticked the fingers down. “It was a true coincidence that you spotted me. Unlikely. You have a message from a contact in Boralus. Maybe, but you’re wasting my time if you don’t get to the point.” He let his third and last finger, his middle finger by no coincidence, remain in the air before ticking it off as well. “You’re a busybody who’s shirking his duties to the Alliance.”

“It’s been three months since anyone’s seen you,” Fairwind said, his voice suddenly sober and his face evening into seriousness.

“Had a feeling that would be it,” Mathias drawled.

“Shandris is about to track you down herself if she doesn’t get word. She scares me, mate. And turns me on, I have to admit those two often go hand in hand.”

Mathias took a vehement swig of his drink and suppressed his scowl.

“The missions are stacking up. The champion can only do so much there, and our troops are spread a little thin without your hand in the pot keeping everything cooking.”

“You’re here on business.” Mathias couldn’t keep the surprise from his tone.

“Well, yes, what else would it be?” Fairwind sounded decently taken aback.

Mathias had the inexplicable urge to throw his mug at Fairwind’s head, though admittedly it wasn’t completely out of the ordinary as a response to the former pirate. He just had that way about him.

“I have duties outside of Boralus, Fairwind,” he said acerbically. “I’m there on loan. Time’s going to run short soon enough. We have a war on, and that land is only one front.”

“Funny thing is,” Fairwind said with a lightness in his tone that put Mathias on edge, “I had Taelia check on that for me.”

Mathias blanched. “Stay out of my affairs!”

“You took leave, mate. You didn’t tell any of us. Maybe we don’t mean a rat’s bottom to you, but that’s not how I ran things on my crew. You’ve worried quite a few people, disappearing like that.”

“I didn’t disappear,” Mathias said shortly. “I took two days. The rest was work. Did she tell you that?”

“…Uh, no.” Fairwind looked extremely confused. He scratched at his chin, then turned a bright smile on the serving girl when she came with two plates of food and a mug of ale. Fairwind shoved a plate toward Mathias, then dug into his own dinner with gusto.

Mathias watched with a slight wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“She made it sound like you’d taken the whole three months off,” Fairwind said, barely understandably, through a mouthful of potatoes.

“Did she, now,” Mathias said, a prickle of unease tickling the back of his neck.

“Well, her words were, ‘he’s on leave’, when I asked, and, well, I suppose I assumed she meant…” Fairwind took a swig of ale.

There was an odd blush staining Fairwind’s cheeks. He’d hardly had enough alcohol to cause even a buzz, and the tavern wasn’t particularly warm, so Mathias couldn’t pretend not to know the reason.

“You were worried about me,” Mathias said, unable to keep the disbelief from his tone. “Fairwind, do you have any idea what my job is? What I’ve _done_?”

“I would if you ever opened up about it, Matty-boy.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Is Mathias better?”

Again, with that damnable flash of sincerity. Of _course_ ‘Mathias’ was worse. It made them sound like intimate friends.

Mathias didn’t do those.

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

Fairwind was still watching him.

“Shaw,” Mathias snapped.

“Spymaster,” Fairwind shot back.

“Not here, in public,” Mathias hissed.

“Kinky,” Fairwind sing-songed.

Mathias hit his palm on the table. His eyes had flickered downward, but he made himself stare Fairwind down after he’d caught himself.

“So why did you run off for three months without a word?” Fairwind asked.

“I have my business. It’s private. Confidential. That’s what this job entails, and the job’s not done. It won’t be done. And it not your business.”

Fairwind whistled. “You don’t trust anyone, do you, mate. So how about that personal leave? You don’t seem like one to take a break. ‘Job’s not done’, as you said. Rest doesn’t seem your style.”

“That’s the thing about personal leave,” Mathias snapped. “It’s personal.”

Of course, _of course,_ that would be when he sneezed.

Fairwind’s bushy eyebrows shot up to his shaggy hairline.

Mathias scowled.

“I would have ordered you soup, mate, if I’d known you were sick,” Fairwind said, and damn him, he said it gently.

And the blasted man waved down a server and ordered him soup.

“I’m not paying for this,” Mathias said.

“Don’t worry, the Alliance has kept me nice and cushy,” Fairwind said with an easy smile. “Can’t imagine you don’t have the coin for it, though. What, keeping some love children on the side? Paying for some secret families stashed willy-nilly throughout the continent?”

Mathias surreptitiously took his handkerchief out since the game was up and wiped his nose efficiently.

“I’m not paying for you to annoy me.”

“You haven’t been sick for three months.”

“Observant man,” Mathias snarked. “You’re like a dog with a bone, Fairwind. Leave it be.”

“Well, you haven’t missed anything,” Fairwind said, going back to his meal. “Back in Boralus. Been quiet.”

“I know.”

“But you didn’t know I was coming here,” Fairwind drawled. “Interesting, that. You keep tabs on everything, even across the bloody world, and you didn’t see me coming.”

Foreboding made Mathias’s stomach jump. He finished his beer and pushed his mug aside, but the server came back with the soup right at that moment. He couldn’t deny it would do him good, and he couldn’t afford to cripple his health just to get away from one perceptive ex-pirate.

Fairwind, damn him, looked pleased he was slurping down the broth.

“You want to know what I think that means?”

“Not particularly, but you’re going to tell me anyway.”

“You were making an effort not to know what I was up to.”

Mathias scraped back his chair, put coin down for his half of what was on the table despite his earlier warning, and strode purposefully toward the door. He heard Fairwind get up with a clatter and stomp his way after him.

The Dwarven district was still bustling, even so late at night; the tram was ever-running, and the stalls and businesses scattered about always seemed to have someone passing through. Mathias kept his head down, trying to avoid attention, though with the hefty figure trailing him it was probably a losing battle.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“Taelia dragged it out of someone or other,” Fairwind said, irritatingly chipper for a man he was trying to get away from.

Mathias was going to have words with a certain king of Stormwind, he thought dourly.

“So you didn’t answer me,” Fairwind said.

“Did you ask a question?”

“…no, I suppose I didn’t.” Fairwind sounded put out. “So here’s one. Why did you disappear for three months, and why are you actively trying to ignore what I’ve been up to? I could have gotten into quite a lot of trouble without you around, you know.”

“Except you actually take your job seriously-” Mathias cut himself off with a muttered curse.

“What was that?” Fairwind looked gleeful when he made the mistake of looking sideways at him. “That almost sounded like a compliment, mate.”

Mathias snorted.

“You didn’t answer either of my questions.”

“It is frankly ludicrous that you think my actions in any way involve you, Fairwind,” Mathias stated flatly, then ruined his demeanor by snuffling back another sneeze.

“How do you do that?” Fairwind chuckled. “It’s a talent you have, spinning words the way you do.”

“It’s a useful skill in my profession.”

Fairwind outright laughed at that.

They were nearing the canals; the city streets were emptying out in the lamplight.

“You want to know what I think?”

“No.”

“I think,” Fairwind continued amicably, “That you and I were getting to be friends, back there in Boralus.”

Mathias’s heart began to hammer. _Ridiculous._

“And it scared you, mate.”

Fairwind stepped sideways, into him, without warning, and it startled Mathias so badly that he had Fairwind up against the bricks of an alley with his arm across his throat and his other hand reaching instinctively for a knife. Fairwind hand his hands held up, his eyes wide.

“Easy,” he said quietly, as if to a spooked animal, “Easy, there, it’s all right. Sorry.”

Mathias stared at him. Fairwind stared back, and did absolutely nothing by the way of trying to get released.

“I thought,” Fairwind wet his lips, and Mathias couldn’t quite stop the way his eyes dipped before fluttering back to his gaze, “That we might have had the chance to become a little more than friends, mate.”

Mathias thought distantly that this would be the part where he disabused Fairwind of such ridiculous notions, gave him a good shake and a stern warning, and went on with his life.

But it had been three months.

He’d gone on every mission he could get his hands on. He’d distanced himself, physically, emotionally, and mentally. He’d cut off knowledge of what Fairwind had been up to…exactly like Fairwind himself had guessed.

Three months, and still…his thoughts strayed back to Boralus, and not because of the missions piling up.

It was dangerous, having attachments outside of cause and faction, when you were in his line of work. Dangerous for him, dangerous for anyone he dared get close to.

Fairwind’s face was serious in the dim light as he regarded him, and Mathias blinked, realizing he’d gone still and silent.

Fairwind bent forward, pushing against Mathias’s hold on him, and Mathias, _damn himself_, leaned into it.

Their mouths crashed together. Mathias’s arm slackened, and Fairwind took the opportunity to step into his personal space, until Mathias shoved him back hard against the stone wall.

He felt Fairwind smirk against his mouth, then plunged his tongue between his lips. Mathias made an undignified moan, and grabbed Fairwind’s ponytail, yanking his head back hard. Breathing heavily, his eyes wild, he searched Fairwind’s satisfied gaze.

“I was right,” he said.

“This is a mistake,” Mathias warned, but his hand was already at Fairwind’s belt buckle. He yanked it open, shoved his pants down, and plunged his hand between them to grab Fairwind’s rock-hard arousal and start pumping.

Fairwind groaned loudly, and his head hit the wall, his eyes rolling back. His knees seemed to buckle for a moment before he got himself back under control.

Mathias smiled, watching his expression voraciously.

_He’d imagined it enough._

He was endangering them both, giving into this, but everything had taken on a surreal quality in the silent Stormwind night, tucked away in a forgotten corner of Old Town.

Fairwind was a hefty, satisfying weight in his palm. He was writhing; Mathias had him crowded between himself and the wall. The small amount he could feel through his own clothes was driving him mad; he had the tip of Fairwind’s cock bumping his own, trapped beneath his pants, with every stroke.

Until Fairwind gripped his shoulders and forced him back, panting heavily, his cheeks flushed and his lips a bitten red, and practically tore off Mathias’s belt, even as his hips continued to buck into his touch. Mathias nearly told him no – it was safer if this was just one-sided – but his self-control abandoned him with the dark look Fairwind gave him. The man’s large hand dove into his waistband and freed his length in a hard grip.

Mathias bit back a cry and was only partly successful.

He barely hugged anyone these days. This amount of touch was overwhelming.

“It’s all right, love,” Fairwind murmured. “I have you.”

And he did; one hand was a vise on his shoulder, holding him in place, as the other stroked him steadily.

Fairwind’s breaths were punching out of him; Mathias watched avidly in a haze of pleasure as he finally brought him to the brink. Fairwind shouted as he came undone, his body shaking, spilling over Mathias’s hand.

He never released Mathias through it. After he was done, Fairwind roughly pulled him to his chest and held him in an arm that seemed to be made of stone as he rocked against him. Enveloped, Mathias finally cried out into Fairwind’s chest as he released, bliss crashing through him.

He couldn’t have imagined the kiss at the top of his head. He struggled until Fairwind let him go, and he efficiently did up his clothes again.

Fairwind seemed to be in no hurry; he was breathing hard, leaning against the wall and lazily scratching his stomach. He smirked at Mathias when he caught his eyes.

He should reprimand Fairwind, he thought vaguely. Push him away. Discourage him. Break his heart so he’d safely distance himself on his own.

“Boat leaves at sunrise tomorrow,” Fairwind said into the silence. “If you’re headed back to Boralus.”

“I’ll be there,” Mathias said.


End file.
